


let down your hair

by Hiyami



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Fractured Fairy Tale, I'm so sorry I'm not sorry, Immortality, Loneliness, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1993983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiyami/pseuds/Hiyami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles takes it carefully, half afraid he's going to drop it. "What is it?" he asks.</p>
<p>"It's a mirror," she tells him, refastening the strange button-like closures on her bag. "It will show you anything that you want to see in the present.  You won't be able to see the past or future, but you'll be able to see and hear anything going on in the world as long as it's happening right then."</p>
            </blockquote>





	let down your hair

**Author's Note:**

> Because sometimes I come up with these terrible ideas and just have to share them with the rest of the world.

At first, it wasn't so bad. His parents came to visit him when they could, and his few friends as well. They could not stay for long, though, because the kingdom was flourishing and there was much work to be done. He was bored, but the visits cheered him greatly. He noticed, though, when they came to be further and further apart. One week, his parents could not visit him because of a festival in the capital. Of course the king and queen had to be there - Stiles could hardly begrudge them that. But then that one missed visit turned into two and then three. Eventually, only Scott came to visit him frequently. Eventually, he'd met a girl, Allison, who was an experienced hunter, and they'd fallen head over heels in love. It was a good story, Stiles had to admit. He never would have thought Scott would become bold enough to ask permission to court her, but he had and she'd granted it.

Scott's visits began to wane, too.

Years passed in this fashion, with the occasional bursts of visits when his parents or Scott remembered him and thought to visit him again. His hair grew long and he didn't bother to cut it. The clothes seemed to magically refresh themselves each night and were clean - and sometimes, oddly enough, new. He didn't really understand it, but he assumed it was because the trends were changing. There were many strange contraptions that eased his way of living in this place.

Of all of the small wonders in the tower, though, his favorite was undoubtedly the room he slept in. It had been a simple room with but a few pieces of furniture. There had been a large and comfortable bed and a chest of drawers to keep some of his things in. Although the room had originally been small, it had grown as he'd added things into it - almost as though it were trying to make sure he could fit everything he wanted into his room. He'd gathered things over the years as he'd explored the few rooms in the tower. The rooms always held the same purpose, but the furniture in them would sometimes change. Once, Stiles had found a room that was just filled with junk. There had been piles of it everywhere - mountain, really. He'd found a nice bookshelf there which he'd taken up to his room. Once there, it wouldn't disappear unless he removed it to another room in which it didn't belong. The trial and error in this first few years had been interesting, to say the least.

Now there were some paintings that he'd tacked against the walls of the room and some odd trinkets and wooden carvings that he'd found were spread atop of the few surfaces there were. Books quickly filled the bookshelf he'd found - a good way to ensure he could read his favorites again, he'd learned, considering the contents of the library changed on a schedule he'd yet to determine.

Best of all was the balcony his room opened into. It was almost the same size as his room and he could drag his chair out to sit in the sun, to look out at the forest and open sky. Sometimes he stands outside in the rain, letting it wash down on him as he twirls about it in - a small joy, but joy all the same.

Living atop the tower by himself was lonely, but the witch had not done it to be cruel. He'd willingly agreed to her terms and she'd done her best to make him comfortable. His people had been starving and his parents worried sick. The only reason the common workers and farmers hadn't taken up their tools of trade to riot was no doubt because of the good treatment his parents had always striven to give them. There was nothing they could do about the drought, though, or the way it was draining their coffers. And there was especially nothing they could do about the larger countries that watched greedily from the sides, waiting for them to dwindle away to nothingness so they might carve into some new territory. It had been an easy decision. He would stay in the tower until his imprisonment had served the cost of his family and kingdom's happiness, however long that may take. She warns him, though - such a cost might be eternity. Stiles makes the deal anyways.

He doesn't remember when he last saw his parents and Scott. He wonders if part of being happy is forgetting that someone they knew essentially sold their freedom to keep them that way. He supposes it must be a heavy cross to bear, so he lets himself pretend that they've forgotten about him - that they're happy with things the way they are even if that means forgetting they had a child, a best friend… Well, as long as they're happy, Stiles can bear it.

Years pass and he manages to entertain himself. He was quiet once, interested in his studies and the fictional stories he could find. Now, though, he talks. He talks a lot. He talks aloud to himself, musing at the world in general. He sings sometimes, made up songs to keep things cheerful.

It doesn't last long, though. He talks to himself so much that it gets to the point that it hurts to hear himself, because in hearing himself, he becomes almost viciously aware that he isn't hearing anyone else. Chattering to keep the silence away only serves to drive a knife between his ribs because the only way to keep the silence away is to remind himself that there is no one to chatter _with_.

He loses track of time. Days bleed together and he stops remembering what day it is, what week, or even what year. Despite the variety of entertainment the tower provides him with, he can't ignore the fact that every day is the same - lonely.

The witch visits him one day, and Stiles realizes that she's grown old. Her once strawberry blonde hair has thinned and grayed and though her posture is as rigid as always, she holds herself more loosely - she isn't so tense anymore.

"I'm going to die soon," is what she greets him with and Stiles is struck by the fact that she's grown old - that _she's going to die_ \- and he hasn't changed at all. He won't change at all. He has only a brief moment to wonder if his parents are still alive before she snaps her fingers in his face and demands his attention. "I brought you a present," she says, "So you can ignore your problems long enough to accept it." She draws a wrapped object from the worn leather satchel she has slung over her shoulder and shoves it at him. The fabric is a verdant green and is neatly bound in twine.

Stiles takes it carefully, half afraid he's going to drop it. "What is it?" he asks.

"It's a mirror," she tells him, refastening the strange button-like closures on her bag. "It will show you anything that you want to see in the present.  You won't be able to see the past or future, but you'll be able to see and hear anything going on in the world as long as it's happening right then."

She pauses, pursing her mouth as she looks upon him. His hair has grown rather a lot and he's given up on bothering to keep it shorn and simply lets it fall as it likes. Now and again, he might braid it to keep his hair in place, but currently, he knows it's a mess. Considering the witch's own immaculate appearance, he feels a bit awkward. Age hasn't slowed her down, clearly, and she still looks perfect.

"I never wanted to leave you like this," she says after a long moment. Stiles is confused, but she's quick to follow up, eyes looking around the small things he's collected to make the room his own. "l hated locking you up like this and I hate that you're going to be stuck here for who knows how long." The words are blunt, but Stiles can't help but notice her voice is gentle. Looking at her again, he realizes that though he'd thought his affections for her were one-sided, they were not quite as hopeless as it may have seemed.

He opens his mouth to speak, but the witch shakes her head at him, eyes bright with tears. "It's too late now," she says, almost too fast. "I'll be dead and gone soon and then no one will even remember you're here." She brushes a hand against her eyes almost angrily. "I was supposed to be your _friend_."

Stiles smiles at her. "It's lonely," he says, "You're right that it'll be hard." He swallows at the thought of just how hard it'll be, but he forces himself to continue, "But you gave me a place to stay that gives me everything I could ever want. New books every day, paints and crafts and all sorts of things. I'll be okay." He smiles, trying to be cheerful. It's probably a terrible attempt that she'll see right through, but he knows she'll appreciate the effort. "Besides, I'll be free one day. You won't be there with me, but maybe I'll be able to find you in your new life."

He looks down at the package she's given him. "Besides, you've given me a way to keep up with the world even if I can't be a part of it. You helped me to save my kingdom." Stiles smiles at her again, this time a bit more honestly. "How could I possibly feel regret for that?"

And he's right. It's a scary thought, but he's oddly okay with it. His country of thousands will be okay. They would thrive for his captivity and his parents would be able to rule. The drought would've ended and the land should have flourished again, thriving even more so than it had before.

He wants to ask her a question, but he's terrified. _Have they all forgotten me?_ he wants to ask. _Does anyone remember me?_ But he can't. The words catch in his throat, because hearing the words spoken aloud makes them real. It makes sense that he'd be completely gone from their memory by now, especially considering that he hasn't had a visit from Scott or his parents in a very long time. Long enough that his parents were both spry and that Scott's hair was still darkly colored and his eyes were bright with curiosity. They were only a little younger than the witch, so Scott must be very old by now.

His parents are probably dead.

The words are there, but they're stuck fast, caught in his throat as though his silence can keep the reality from slipping into the sad existence that makes up his life.

So instead, he just says, "Thank you." And when she stares at him, carefully tended hands moving to cover his mouth, he repeats it, "Thank you. Thank you for everything." There are too many ways to hate and love this woman, but she's only ever done her best for him so he just can't bring himself to think badly of her. He sticks to just loving her instead.

She doesn't say anything, choking up. It's not something he's ever witnessed before, so he's not sure of whether it comes from the situation or her age. Perhaps she grew to be a bit more open about her feelings than she used to be.

"Goodbye, Stiles," she says, finally. "I am proud to have known you and I hope that I will know you again in another life."

Then she leaves.

Stiles is alone again.

This time, though, he has the present she gave him - the mirror. A scrying mirror, really. He hadn' t even known they could be found, so he was more than just a little shocked at the item's existence in his hands. He knew that the witch had probably traveled a great distance and undergone leaps and bounds of growth in order to become capable of something like this.

He unwraps it when he's on his bed, carefully untying the twine and peeled the fabric away to reveal the oval shaped mirror lying beneath the wrapping. It was beautiful, carefully bordered in some sort of decorative lace design. Of course, the design was done in _metal_ which only made the mirror that much more amazing. He inhaled, breathing in the scent of warm metal and wildflowers.

He's a little afraid, but there's no safer place to try this, curled up in his bed as he is.

"Show me my parents," he says aloud, only a little proud that his voice didn't waver. It's not as though there was anyone else there to mock him.

The surface of the mirror shimmered, colors rippling, as it changed from the reflection of Stiles to a green-filled image. It was mostly solidifying and he could see that his parents were in some sort of grass and stone filled structure. It was only when it became completely solid that he realized they were in a place that he'd often played as a child: the cemetery.

He whimpered as tears welled up in his eyes. He'd never know now if they'd forgotten him or not. They were gone, forever lost to him.  Looking at the inscription beside the beautiful statues of his parents, he saw that there was no mention of him there. It hurt to think about why - it wasn't really confirmation either way - but it was real and true and Stiles cried.

Stiles cried for many things now, from the fact that he hadn't seen his parents in so long to the fact that he never would be able to. He knew he didn't have any younger siblings, because there was no mention of it on the stones. Still, it was painful. He would never know the warm touch of his mother's hand upon his brow as she soothed his worries away or the firm pat of the shoulder his father would give him when he was proud of him.

"Show me Scott," he said aloud hoarsely, terrified of what he'd see. He was relieved to see that the mirror's surface rippled to show a bakery along a main street. He is pleased to see that it's busy - it means his friend's business goes well. He sees Scott tending to the customers at the front and grows smug when he realizes that the idea he'd suggested to his friend had obviously been wildly popular. Allison was a huntress, so it had made sense to suggest some sort of meat-filled pastries and, at the time, he'd suggested meat pies.

Which were selling from their baskets almost as soon as Scott's fellow worker - Amanda, he'd called her - pulled the trays from the oven.

It wasn't until she said to an old man sitting at a table behind the counter, "Father, will mother be pleased by today's business?" that Stiles realized that the Scott he was seeing wasn't actually Scott, but rather Scott's _son_ and that Amanda, a girl with long, brown hair and mischievous eyes, was his daughter. And Scott was the old man.

Stiles dropped the mirror in shock and watched as it immediately went blank, merely reflecting ceiling of his room.

Scott was old. Scott had grown _old_.

Stiles couldn't - he didn't know what to do with that. He set the mirror on his desk and walked away. He could come back to it later, when he had more presence of mind.

When he is finally able to settle himself, he watches them - Scott, Allison, and their children. It's rather clear that they don't remember Stiles at all - Scott remembers a childhood friend who moved away, or perhaps died. The now old baker seems to be a bit unsure of what actually happened to him.

It's something of a relief, Stiles thinks. It's also a bit terrifying. He doesn't know if the change has been brought on by age or magic, but given the lack of his presence anywhere in the kingdom, he imagines it to have been magical. It's terrifying and lonely, but he's glad that these people who he loves so dearly won't feel the loss of him - the good parts or the bad.

Scott dies, then Allison. Stiles watches their kids grow and get married and die, and then their kids. He makes gifts for them and their children - knits clothes, carves toys - but has no way of ever sending them out to the people for whom they were intended. When he realizes the futility of his efforts, he cries, smashes his carvings, and rips apart his carefully made woolen creations.

It's only when he's exhausted his rage and his tears, when he's curled up in bed with the mirror mocking him from the stand he'd made for it on his little bedside table that he lets the words slip out, shattered and hopeless, lonely and utterly heartbroken, "Was there ever anyone just for me?" He's got his eyes closed and isn't really expecting anything but the quiet, but when he opens his eyes, the mirror shows him a man, beautiful and strong. The clothing and furs he wears proves the man is well off. His form is well-defined.

Stiles is awed by him, watching the man's movements carefully. The man is a hunter, he thinks. And a trapper as well, he realizes when the man smiles at a snared rabbit.

Given something new to see and learn - someone just for him - Stiles crawls to the edge of his bed to watch the man. It's dark out now, but only just. The sun is beginning to set and Stiles watches the man - _his_ man - head back to his home, a cottage out in the woods, made of wood and stone. It's a bit big for just the one person, but when he watches, he sees no one else. The man, he decides, must live alone.

So Stiles watches the man, for weeks and weeks, for months, and then years. One day, however, he realizes that the lines of the man's jaw have changed, the lines of his forehead are now permanent and his hair is peppered with gray and white instead of the bold and beautiful black it always was.

He doesn't mind, because his man is still beautiful, but he's made sad by the realization that this man has lived a lonely life, hunting and trapping without a man or a woman, no children. In isolating himself, he had also isolated this man.

Stiles cries.

And then one day, he sees the man die in the mirror, he sees the man stand from his comfortable looking bed and pause for precious seconds before he sees the man falling. The man falls and tries to hold himself up, but can't. His breathe comes quickly and when the man coughs, it's with flecks of blood. Eventually, he stops breathing, his face a pale white, forehead covered by a sheen of sweat, and his lips made red with blood.

And Stiles mourns again, tearful and hurt and all too aware that he is lonely and will forever be alone. Here, he'd seen a man made just for him, but he hadn't been able to do anything but watch as the man fell to his knees as death took him. The man never even knew Stiles lived - that there was someone just for him out there in the world - and now he was gone.

"I'm sorry," he cries into his pillow, curling into as small a ball as he can. Over and over again, he apologizes - because if he hadn't promised his lifetimes for his people, he might have met this man - might have one day had a chance at happiness. Might have been made happy by this man and might have made him happy as well.

He ignores the mirror for a long time after that, wrapping it in the pretty green fabric and twine again. He hides it in the bottom drawer of his desk, burying it beneath a bunch of his crafts and other small creations.

Stiles falls, one day. He trips and in the second he realizes that he's going to land on the knife, he feels a mixture of feelings, from terror to relief. He lands, the knife slicing up and into his belly. The pain is sharp and vicious and he can't breathe, can't move, can't anything. His head feels like it'll explode from the pressure before he remembers to draw in air. Blessed air fills his lungs and he rolls onto his back only to watch the knife disappear from his belly, his wound sealing - and healing, too, he instinctively realized.

Stiles watches as the blood that had spilled from his body slips back into the gash of his belly, the skin knitting together before his very eyes. He's shocked and relieved before growing scared and suddenly despairing.

In the days following, he tries to bring harm to himself in many ways, learning to ignore the pain. He tries to slice at his arms, his legs, tries to break his own bones. He tries to hold his breathe, to hang himself - he tries a great many different things, but nothing works. He cannot be physically hurt here, and nor can he die.

Stiles feels trapped in a new way, incapable of relying on even death to escape. He falls asleep shivering the night he gives in on his experiments, exhausted of it all.

 

 

 

 

Days blend together until the weeks and months all run into years. Centuries pass in the tower. Stiles finds new, interesting creations in the tower - things that he'd never seen before - and one day, he hears someone yelling from outside. Shocked by the new sound and a bit terrified at this new thing, he goes to the balcony of his room and peers down through the bars. He's shocked to see a woman there, armored and with a sword in hand.

"Can I help you?" Stiles calls curiously. He winces at the way his voice sounds, croaky and dry, but he supposes years of disuse will do that to a person.

"I am Sir Erica, a knight in the service of the kingdom!" she announces, tossing her golden hair back over her shoulder as she shouts up to him. "I am on a quest, but I have lost my way. Can you help me?"

Stiles pauses, considering. "I don't know," he says finally, a frown fitting itself on his face as his eyebrows draw together. "Where are you going?" he calls down, "And what is your quest?"

Sir Erica squints up at him and Stiles realizes that the sun is no doubt in her eyes. "I am looking for the capital to seek my one true love," she calls up. She pauses, no doubt blinking away sunspots. "Why don't you come down so we don't have to yell?"

Stiles bites his lip, hesitating for just a moment before admitting, "I can't."

Sir Erica looks up at him again, this time suspiciously. "You can't?" she yells up, incredulous. "Why not? Haven't you got any legs?"

Stiles gives a small, hysterical chuckle, somehow amazingly relieved that there's no way she'll hear his unmanly giggles from so far below. He gets a hold of himself to yell down, "I'm under a spell, so I can't leave until the magic lets me go!"

The woman freezes, eyes widening - and widening rather a lot, really, if Stiles could see that from all the way up on the balcony. "Are you cursed?" she calls up, sheathing her sword. "Can I help _you_?"

Stiles shook his head and smiled down at her. "I don't think you can," he calls, "For I am to remain here until my imprisonment has paid the debt of happiness my kingdom incurred." A thought occurs to him then, and he calls down, "What is today's date?"

The knight gives a loud whistle - no doubt to indicate her awe at his sentence. "It's the night before the summer solstice of the year 497." There's a brief cause before she calls out again: "How long have you been here?"

Stiles does the math in his head, feeling a bit ill. "I have been here since the year 143 - my parents were the rulers of the country then."

"Good King Stilinski and the Queen?" Sir Erica asks, wide-eyed. Stiles nods, before calling down an affirmative, unsure of if she'd see his response.

"I don't think you can help me," Stiles calls down, "But I can probably help you. Wait there for a moment." He moves briskly, stepping back into his room and going through his drawers before remembering the one filled with odds and ends, strange bits and pieces - and the mirror. He opens it, drawing the packaged mirror out carefully. The scent of warm metal and wildflowers rises as though still fresh as he unwraps the mirror.

He carries it out to the balcony and swallows hard before finally saying, "Show me Sir Erica's person meant for just her." The mirror's surface shimmers and ripples again before clearing to show him an image of the castle's smithy with a strapping young man with dark skin and bright eyes. His apron is marked with his name - Boyd - and his rank is that of journeyman.

"Well, then," Stiles says, swallowing thickly. "At least one of us should get a happily ever after." He sets the mirror down on a table before going to answer Sir Erica's question.

"The capital, as I remember it, is that way," he calls, pointing towards his former home. "And your one true love is a man called Boyd who works among the castle's blacksmiths. He's an apprentice, dark-skinned, so you should find him easily."

Sir Erica stares up at him, silent for a moment as her jaw works but without words.

"A-Are you certain?" she calls up, eyes wide.

Stiles gave a shrug and responded easily, "As certain as the North Star guides us home." Which, considering the capital was north of there, made perfect sense.

The lady knight still seems to be skeptical, but Stiles finally shrugs and sends her off, telling her, "Either it _is_ him or I'm sending you on a fool's errand," he says, "But it doesn't change the fact that the capital is north of here - or it used to be, anyways. Get on with you - he won't wait forever."

She salutes him and they exchange a few more words before she goes off, using a piercing whistle to call her mount to her. Stiles watches her disappear into the forest and gazes in the direction she goes for a long time, wistful.

The time, however, is ill spent and he eventually forces himself to go back inside, aware that staring won't help him get out of the tower. He watches her later, and he's pleased to see that she has, indeed, met her person just for her. He watches them now and again, and he's happy for them. They fall in love, get married, and Sir Erica gets pregnant. Stiles is proud of her for assembling the pieces of her life to be just the way she wants them.

He gets lost in the tower for a while, working on paintings and trying to make new things in the ever-changing craft room. When he does check in on the lovely couple again, several years have passed and they've had three children, two boys and a girl.

One of the boys has black hair and a permanent scowl and Stiles' breath stops when he sees him. He asks the mirror to show him the person just for him and nearly cries when it shows him that same little boy again. Stiles watches the boy grow, watches him fight off bullies and look after his younger siblings. He watches the boy grow big and strong, black haired and hazel eyed, his beautiful, perfect man. Stiles watches the man take up carpentry, watches him make works of true art, gift some to his family, sell others.

And Stiles watches the man get married, heart breaking. He doesn't begrudge his man the happiness - hopes for his man to be happy, in fact - but he hates that some ridiculously beautiful woman gets to have him, gets to share his bed, gets to bear his children. It hurts and it hurts, but Stiles never stops looking at him, hoping for him to live happily. It reminds him of his loneliness, but now and again, he gets to forget he's alone, too, especially when his man is working on a piece of wood in his workshop, building some glorious work of art. His man's successes are his successes and his man's failures are his as well.

Eventually, his man dies and Stiles can only watch as the family picks itself up on its own to try and carry on without the man. At least, Stiles thinks bitterly, they have each other. He has no one.

He keeps on as he must, letting the time pass him by as he waits for some sort of escape from here. Every now and again, someone will stumble across his tower and Stiles will give them the gift of their one true love - the one thing he himself will never be able to have. It's a vicious and twisting pain, the kind that wrenches at your chest before slashing away at your belly.

He's so used to seeing others pass him by that although there is a small part of him that wants to be happy, there's a greater part of him that's acknowledged that it will not happen. The price of his kingdom's freedom was these many long years of his own captivity. He's unable to be content, trapped as he is, though he must force himself to acknowledge there is nothing that he or anyone else can do.

He begins to wish for it to end, for his time to run out, so he can die. Dying, he thinks, would be easier than this. Painful, perhaps, but certainly less drawn out. Sometimes, he wonders why he ever bothered to do this - what had made him even want to come here, to be trapped in this tower? He remembers his reasons, but he no longer remembers his parents' faces, or Scott's. He remembers their names, but that is only because he'd written them - and his - down that he would never forget.

But the undeniable truth is that Stiles is weary of this life. He's brokenhearted - brokensouled, even - and he doesn't know what he can do to make anything better.

All he can do is lead people to their true loves and even then, they must first find him. And if he's honest, the only reason he can even do that is because of Lydia's magic. He has nothing to do with it, really.

Eventually, he finds a story about himself in a book - he's written as a wizard in a tower who can give the adventurer that finds him their one true wish. It's not entirely true, but he supposes most books can never really tell the whole truth. He likes the story and how he helps the adventurers find their happy endings, though, so he carries it back to his room to slip onto the bookshelf.

More people come, here and there. Considering there are more visitors than he's had in the past, he supposes the story about him might have gotten people curious. None of them are the person meant just for him, but he helps them all the same. In all honesty, he doesn't even know what he would do should that person come. He'd read a fairy story about a girl named Rapunzel once, and he'd toyed with growing out his hair.

It wasn't as though it wasn't ridiculously long as it was anyways. He just… never got around to cutting it. As though aware of his thoughts, the tower gives him a gift and the next day, he finds great lengths of rope in the craft room. It reaches from the balcony all the way to the ground.

He can't leave the balcony, though, so he supposes it doesn’t matter. He left the rope there and went back to his business - or lack thereof.

Stiles doesn't leave finding his man up to chance anymore and asks the mirror to see him at least once a day. He watches the man live and die and he cries every time, but he can't stop watching. Once, he convinces himself not to watch for a week, but when he comes back to the mirror and asks to see his man, all he gets is an image of newly turned earth and a poor man's tombstone. The pain of not having been there - even if his man would never know - in his final moments is cruel and rigid, a spear of ice moving up from his stomach through his chest and into his throat.

The next time he finds his man, he doesn't stop watching. It hurts, but he thinks that not watching would hurt more. He forgets, of course, over centuries, and he experiences the pain anew each time he makes the mistake of turning his eyes away. It is almost as though his man his doomed to die when Stiles chooses not to watch, but can live out a full life when he makes himself see what he cannot have. It would be terribly and ironically sadistic of the universe, so he hopes the two events aren't linked, makes himself believe it so he doesn't go mad.

He watches civilization grow and collapse in on itself, always in interesting ways. He watches the next civilization swear not to make the mistakes of its predecessors and he watches them make the same mistakes in different ways. He watches technology grow and realizes one day that he's got a bathroom (as opposed to a privy), a toilet, and sink. He still doesn't know what's going on with his bath, but he assumes he'll either one day find out or that it's some sort of magical adaptation of whatever exists now in the baths of today's civilizations.

Technology is almost like a manmade magic that isn't limited to the special few people - and magic seems to have died out. But manmade things must come from the earth and the resources were too great a price. Technology crumbles because it can no longer progress, can no longer maintain its current peaks or norms.

He gets another visitor - a boy called Isaac. Seeking sanctuary from an angry hunter, he'd climbed the rope to the tower with no door and had drawn the rope up behind him. He could go no further than the balcony, but he could come up.

Stiles hadn't realized that was even a possibility. As consumed as he was with the idea of getting out, he hadn't realized that a rope that could be slid down could also be climbed.

He shelters Isaac for a few weeks until the boy's father finally leaves him be. Stiles had reached new levels of rage and painful creativity which he'd unleashed on the abusive man and his crew from above. When they finally leave, Stiles talks with Isaac, telling him that he can stay if he wants, but also explaining that he could show him the person meant just for him.

Isaac leaves and finds his one true love. Stiles' leaves the rope as it is, dangling from his balcony. He imagines that as long as it is there, someone else might visit.

Isaac is the last person he sees for two centuries. He spends the time watching his man and people. One day, he sees bombs being blown up in every direction until only a handful of people survive. He's in tears, shocked and horrified at the stupidity that caused so much destruction. His man doesn't live - he's dead again and Stiles cries because he doesn't know if he'll ever see him again. He doesn't know if the few humans left will survive this, as pampered as they have become. They don't know how to hunt anymore, or even how to sew.  Stiles is terrified because he wants so badly for them to survive - they're his only hope of seeing his man again someday.

They survive. Stiles celebrates each birth, mourns each death until they become capable of living once more. He watches some split off from the group to leave and watches others argue and feud. He's frustrated, because he doesn't understand how these last few people don't seem to understand that they can't afford to fight.

It doesn't matter. A bonfire carelessly tended devours thatch roofs and wooden walls. They die screaming and in pain and Stiles feels an ache in his body so deeply that he can only gasp and take deep breaths to try to keep from fainting.

His man is born again and he doesn't understand how this could've happened until he realizes that a few people had left, fleeing the flames. He watches the man grow, watches the man's sister grow sick and die of too much water in her lungs. He watches the man's mother die in childbirth, along with the babe, and he watches the man's father take to teaching the boy with a vengeance, teaching him everything there is to know about survival.

He watches his man bury his deceased father and leave the place he'd called home to try and find other people. He seeks other human beings who, alive, he can meet with, live with, and maybe even foster hope with.

He finds Stiles instead.

And Stiles - Stiles doesn't know what to do. He knows what he wants to do and he knows what's right to do. He doesn't want to keep the man here, no matter how much he wants to have him. He knows well the pains of captivity. A beautifully decorated birdcage is still but a cage. He has no real claim over this man but for true love and it isn't fair, here, at the end of the world, to ask his man to forsake humanity for him.

The man stays anyways. He tries to climb up the side of the tower with the rope, but two centuries and a handful of decades have made it old and rotten. It breaks when he's only ten feet up and Stiles is grateful that his man wasn't higher when it happened.

He searches for another rope, but doesn't get one. The rope, it would seem, was a one-time gift.

But the man stays, he can't come in, and Stiles can't go out, but they talk every day. Sometimes Stiles weeps and cries and sometimes the man - his name is Derek, this time - punches the base of the tower, angry and helpless. It's hard, but they manage. Finally, Stiles cuts his hair and braids it before binding it to the railing and throwing it down. It's not long enough - though he'd hoped - and so he goes through the tower day after day, looking for more tools with which to add length to his makeshift rope.

It takes time, but they manage it. Derek begins building a ladder and Stiles continues to find things to add length to his rope.

Derek makes it to the balcony. Stiles freezes when he seems that Derek is finally up here, with him - close enough for him to touch, to smell, to actually hold and be held by. He doesn't know what to do.

But Derek does. Derek holds him and kisses him, touches him, makes love to him under the open night sky, gentle enough to make Stiles cry as his body overcomes the shock of all of the sensations. He brings food to Derek from the kitchen and they spend most of their time on the balcony. He finds a sleeping bag and tent with a waterproof tarp in the crafting room and they're able to make shelter for Derek - and for himself. Stiles spends more time on the balcony than in the tower, but it doesn't escape his notice that although he's become free with the arrival of his man, Derek has become a prisoner of another kind, trapped on this balcony, unwilling to leave, but unable to come in.

And then, finally, almost two thousand years after his imprisonment began, another bedroom appears in the tower and Derek - Derek finally comes in.

 


End file.
